Empty Branches
by Aeanagwen
Summary: A confrontation at Kokakurou. There's more to Oriya than meets the eye.


This was brought on by Tatsumi's comment that the sakura at Kokakurou are always in bloom, and Oriya's statement that he has very strong spiritual senses. Thanks to Evil Asian Genius for the proofread and the title suggestion. 

* * *

They say the sakura at Kokakurou are always in bloom, through the turning of every season, the passing of every year. Oriya knows that isn't quite true. He remembers a time when the petals rained down like tears. It had been many, many years ago, when he was still a young man, barely out of high school and home for the summer for a visit. His existence was largely secret to the outside world, and the caution proved well-founded. If it had not been so, it was very likely that the poison which killed his father would have found its way into his own dish as well. 

As it is, the uncle who'd desired the wealth and power of Kokakurou was very much surprised to find a boy with storm-dark eyes before him in line to inherit, one ruthlessly willing to pull strings with several of Kokakurou's more notable customers to have him locked away for life. 

There'd been little time for Oriya to grieve. The summer days were filled to the brim with lessons in all the old traditional arts that mastership of Kokakurou required, chafing at the boy's then wilder spirit. He still hasn't decided whether he was smoothed out or worn down; the analogy tends to depend on his mood when he reflects on it. 

He remembers, though, the old seamstress telling him that the sakura were bonded to the master of the place, and that when he had truly grown accustomed to the position, they would flower again. It was magic the start of which was older than any now living remembered. He'd watched them every day, but the trees stayed empty for weeks on end, branches reaching skeletal fingers towards the sky as if to call back and clutch at the spirit of the man who'd left. They were still dark and barren when he headed off to college, ill at ease with his newfound responsibility and desiring something more solid than the shadowed truths and hidden secrets of his ancestral home. 

That had been the year he'd met Muraki. 

So much and yet, nothing at all had changed in his life since then. Muraki came and went like the spirits he insisted on dressing to resemble, as much an enigma as he ever was, leaving Oriya often to wonder what about him had caught the man's interest. He saw so little of his friend's true face, and it wasn't until Muraki's first visit to Kokakurou that Oriya, now fully at home in his role and with the sakura in resplendent blossom, found out two things that he hadn't been aware of. 

First, that his tie to the sakura granted him awareness of Kokakurou and everything in its grounds on far higher levels than the mundane five physical senses. Second, by way of the first, that Muraki was not entirely human. Muraki was not entirely anything, save confusing. The magic he possessed in spades hummed beneath his skin, and sometimes Oriya thought he could almost see it, a pale nimbus around Muraki when he stood in direct light and his eternal whiteness nearly glowed. 

There are no answers to questions that are never asked, and that is the way their friendship has always been, weighted with unspoken meanings and intricacy, shared memories of exchanges of which neither of them speak. 

_Oriya... If I was to die before you... Even if it's false... Would you cry even one tear for me...?_

Oriya had. But then, Muraki hadn't died that time. He'd come back, with a new scar, but nonetheless whole. And, as before, he'd been followed, by the one that looked so young, the boy with the green eyes as sharp and clear as glass, and as liable to cut the unwary. He'd had a gun. 

Muraki had only smiled and told Oriya to stand back. Oriya hadn't listened. He'd been too busy staring at the handgun and feeling the tightly knit energies of the spell woven around the bullet. The warding spells kept Muraki's attention from them surely enough, but Oriya's senses, so long as he is in Kokakurou, miss nothing. And his reflexes, honed swift and deadly by years of experience wielding a blade, are nothing to be dismissed. 

It had caught both of them, Muraki and the boy, by surprise, the flurried movement of silk and long hair, as the sound of the gunshot shattered the still air. 

He feels something touch his cheek, and opens his eyes to see the petals drifting down around him. He knows what it means without having to ask. It wasn't such a serious injury, really, but the blood isn't clotting as it should, only flowing from the wound despite the best efforts of the man whose arms are wrapped protectively around him. 

He turns his head to see that the boy has dropped the gun and is staring at him in wide-eyed shock, the guilt etched into his expression like the thin veneer of frost over Kokakurou's roofs in the early winter. 

It was a good shot, and Oriya is sure that the boy has his reasons for it, as do so many others, but this once, Oriya thinks, he'll take Muraki's life, in exchange for the life saved by his giving the boy the cardkeys the last time they met. 

He looks up now to see Muraki's face above him, white and blank as marble, his eyes empty as he stares down at the friend he holds close, the blood staining rich clothing and white. He seems paler than usual, Oriya reflects through the pain, which is steadily growing more distant. 

He reaches a finely trembling hand up to touch Muraki's face, and is stunned to see the crystalline gleam of moisture welling in the man's good eye. At Oriya's touch, it spills free, and he watches the tear trace downwards and fall. 

"Will you cry for me...?" It's asked almost in wonder. 

The pain that slices through Muraki's eyes is wordless and deep, without giving the man any way to escape. He says nothing, but then, Oriya doubts if Muraki ever really knew how to express such emotion. 

"The sakura..." He lets his eyes drift upwards to the black lattice of the branches and the delicate rose of the petals, which, as they settle to the ground, are stained a far deeper shade. His voice sounds very distant to his own ears, and he wonders if anyone else hears the words, or if they are only clear in his mind. 

"There's no heir... They won't ever see another spring..." 

But Muraki takes his hand, and pulls him close in strong arms, and the darkness is closing in, there's no more time to think, to mourn the flowers' final death, and all he can see is the perfect, pristine white... 

And around them, the sakura weep. 


End file.
